YERINGTON, NV - Lyon County, Nev., department consolidations will lead to the creation of a separate Fleet Division under Public Works. Fleet was previously under the Roads Department and was not its own division, according to Mike Workman, Public Works director. Public Works is a newly created department that's now composed of what were originally separate Roads and Utilities departments.

The County decided to create the Fleet Division to improve efficiency, Workman said, because the County is spread across a large geographic area. Under the previous organizational structure, County employees sometimes had to drive fleet vehicles up to 50 miles to maintenance facilities in Yerington, the County seat, for service.

"By creating a fleet division and consolidating, we'll hopefully be able to be more efficient servicing vehicles in the locations where they're used," Workman said.

Although details have yet to be finalized, Workman said the idea was to send a technician to a location to assist another technician as needed rather than transport vehicles across the County. The County currently has four maintenance facilities -- two for heavy equipment and two for light vehicles.

The Fleet Division will have a total of six staff members, including fleet superintendent, and will manage more than 500 pieces of rolling stock.

A new fleet superintendent will be hired from within the County. "We're eliminating department head positions and developing operating level superintendent positions, so they'll be field operations superintendents," Workman said.

At the time of the interview, Workman said he expected the leadership structure of Public Works to be finalized within a couple of weeks.